How media sucks up to White House

In a profile last month, The Washington Post described deputy White House chief of staff Jim Messina as a “low-profile aide” who begins “fixing President Obama’s problems” before 7 a.m., works 14 hours straight and then hits the gym.

Not to be outdone, POLITICO noted the next day that White House chief legislative liaison Phil Schiliro — another “low-profile” official but one possessing “Buddha-like Zen” — is already working in the West Wing by 6 a.m.

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Time says reporters admire White House press secretary Robert Gibbs (“The President’s Warrior”) because he “has the president’s ear and can get to the commander in chief when an answer is needed.” The New Yorker says White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel is “a political John McEnroe, known for both his mercurial temperament and his tactical brilliance,” yet is also uncommonly indifferent to both criticism and praise.

Welcome to the “beat sweetener.”

In the early days of any administration, reporters reach out to the men and women who might become their sources over the next four years — then slather them with glowing profiles suitable for framing in their mothers’ bedrooms.

Even garden-variety government officials become political superheroes, each one harder-working and more down-to-earth than the last — and all of them enjoying the ear of the president.

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Reading once again about Gibbs’ folksy ways, his pastel ties and his Alabama roots, a part-time political junkie might question the need for yet another profile of the hard-working press secretary who’s always within earshot when the president weighs a big decision.

But this proliferation of profiles isn’t about the reader’s need to know, or at least not entirely. It’s also about reporters’ need to introduce themselves to and ingratiate themselves with the White House officials they’ll need as sources over the next four years.

It’s far easier for a reporter to get time with a key staffer when both parties know that a flattering profile is coming. And it’s a lot easier to get calls returned from the staffer’s colleagues — especially subordinates — if they know it’s an opportunity to suck up to the subject.

Jonathan Alter, a senior editor at Newsweek, describes the beat sweetener as “a tribal custom” among the press corps.

“It’s emblematic of the way Washington journalism often works,” Alter said, noting that the problem is when a reporter “puts the ease of their working relationship ahead of the interests of the reader.”

Alter holds the distinction of being the first to use the term “beat sweetener,” back in 1988 — at least as far as Lexis-Nexis is concerned. However, Alter said the term dates back further, having remembered hearing it thrown around the offices of the Washington Monthly in the early 1980s.

Coinage aside, the beat sweetener probably has existed as long as reporters have relied on official sources for background information. It’s also a phenomenon that occurs regardless of which party is in power. In December 2000, Slate editor-at-large Jack Shafer noted the flood of positive profiles for Bush administration officials — enough to hold a contest for readers to create their own beat sweetener.

Editors and reporters can justify a profile as worthwhile on the basis that the person is in a new position.